Social media fake followers racket: Mumbai Police summons Chtrbox CEO Pranay Swaroop and his wife

Mumbai: The Mumbai Police Crime Branch on Friday (July 24, 2020) summoned to Pranay Swaroop, CEO of digital platform company named Chtrbox, his wife Julie and social media influencer and fashion blogger Ankit Arora in the social media fake followers case.

Pranay and his wife Julie had were at the crime branch office today at around 12.30 pm to record a statement in the case. Chtrbox is one of the leading social media influencers marketing company. Last year it was accused of leaking private date of as many as 49 million Instagram users.  

Recently, the Mumbai police busted a racket of fake followers on social media and everal Bollywood celebrities, sports personalities and some high profile builders were alleged to be guilty of buying followers to stay ahead in the social media race. According to the police, the racket involved paying people to increase their followers on social media.

Earlier, Mumbai Police's Criminal Intelligence Unit (CIU) had arrested a person named Abhishek Dinesh Daude, in connection with the case. The cops suspect international social media marketing company named 'www.followerskart.com' being involved in the scam. 

This social media scam came to light after Bollywood singer Bhumi Trivedi found a fake profile of hers on social media. She lodged the complaint and took police assistance. 

An investigation was launched and the police suspects manually or BOT tool has been used.

In the investigation so far, Mumbai Police have found a few Bollywood personalities, sports and as many as 176 high profile people who have allegedly paid to get followers.